


follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies

by palinodes



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Pride and Prejudice Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Disabled Character, Christmas, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mental Health Issues, Minor Kyle Valenti/Maria DeLuca, Minor Max Evans/Liz Ortecho, Minor Rosa Ortecho/Isobel Evans, Not Beta Read, Slow Burn, Weight Issues, sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palinodes/pseuds/palinodes
Summary: Every Christmas, Alex Manes says hello to winters in Roswell and to the hateful gaze of the only man he has ever truly loved.Their two conflicting personalities, along with their unaligned interests for their families compound in a series of secrets and lies that simultaneously push them farther apart and closer than ever. They have until Christmas Eve to get it together, for the family's sake.A very, very loose Pride and Prejudice AU (at Christmas!).
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 76
Kudos: 70
Collections: 12 Days Of Malex 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loveislove87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loveislove87/gifts).



> Hi, Trish! I hope you like this. The chapters will be posted throughout the evening. 
> 
> I really tried to make this work for you and I hope you like the final result.

If you ask Alex Manes what he wants in life, he would tell you: a quiet room, a piano, and an iced coffee. He would assure you that was all he had ever wanted since childhood and would never ask for more than that. 

He would also be quick to add that it should be known by all that Alex Manes does not _like_ Michael Guerin like _that_ anymore. 

At least, that is what he tells himself (and anyone willing to listen).

He used to gush about the man when they were teenagers and Alex thought they were in love. 

Alex knows he was. Michael, though, Alex isn’t so sure about. The only emotion that Michael seemed to have for him these days was contempt. Alex’s hellion of a father saw to that. They tried again after his father ran Michael off, but Alex wasn’t in the headspace for it. Michael had been so angry and had been angry ever since. He was constantly pushing him away. He seemed to be hellbent on driving Alex as far away as he could. Alex was going to ask Michael to join him, but he never got the chance. He was in the drunk tank the night Alex was set to leave. 

But Alex has spent the past year in teletherapy and he is not going to give in to Michael’s machinations any longer. 

Thankfully, in his day-to-day life, Alex never crosses paths with anyone who even knows Michael Guerin. 

One might think this is by design, given the fact that Alex is never in the same place for more than six months or so. After graduate school, he went right into an AILA project of setting up community centers and libraries on small reservations across the country. He had even been in the Yukon for a spell. Spent a few months in the deep south of Texas. Now, he is renting a small room in Washington State. 

During their last monthly call, Arturo had insisted that Alex come home to Roswell for Christmas. He always did and Alex, every year, agreed to it. A disabling combination of guilt and love leaves Alex never truly able to deny him. How could he? After all, Arturo saved him. Gave him everything. Arturo never asks for much, but he could and should ask for more from him. 

Alex ran away from home at sixteen after his father broke his leg in three places. His mother was long gone, so he lived with Arturo and his daughters until he finished high school. He had occasional meetups with his father that seemed to nearly always end in tears or blood. The worst was when it ended up being both.

He hasn’t seen his father and brothers in nearly ten years. Since he got back into Roswell last night, he has been texting with two of his older brothers, Flint and Greg. 

His leg never did quite heal properly. He and Michael were dancing towards a reconciliation when suddenly, one day, everything changed. So, Alex left. He got his undergrad online and spent four years hopping from restaurant to bar to restaurant. An experience that had taught him some great, but tough life lessons. He still returned to Roswell for every holiday throughout what Liz called his “healing process.” He settled in Michigan for a few years while he got his masters. Graduation could not have come fast enough, for Alex had been restless for most of it. 

He has been floating from reservation to reservation ever since. 

He is a little sad to be missing out on the holiday programming at his current assignment at Makah and Clallam County, the kids were so sweet. Kids were sweet everywhere, but there was something about this assignment that felt like a capstone to this journey. Getting the county to hand over the old school building had been hard, but such a blessing. Still, every night of December leading up to his flight, he would be shelving and running budgets well into the evening. And on repeat, across the hall in the old gymnasium, the local middle school band’s rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” was the soundtrack to his task. 

He does not particularly miss that. 

Now, it was four days before Christmas and he and the Ortechos find themselves in amongst the hustle and bustle of the Evans Annual Christmas Party. He has successfully avoided not only Michael but also all the Evanses thus far. 

Due to Max and Liz's impending nuptials, and Rosa and Isobel's new romance, Alex and Michael would be seeing a lot more of each other. And they already saw each other quite a bit. Every birthday Alex was in town for. Every single damn holiday had some joint component that Alex would never even try to weasel his way out of because Arturo would accuse him of ditching him. Even though Arturo somehow always had some darts to play or grill to man and Alex was left to entertain Michael every damn time. 

Michael and Evans' children had been a package deal since they were very small. But, they had grown even closer after Michael moved into Mr. Evan’s extra garage after his mother, Nora had died. He kept his room neat and tidy, always remembered to take out the garage, and was out of there the second he turned eighteen. For this good behavior, he has had a “standing invitation” to all Evans functions. The man has never been one to turn down free booze. 

So, Michael and Alex, with nowhere else to go and an immense sense of obligation for being impositions in their youth, are forced to be the joint “shit family/no family” hangers-on for the Ortechos and Evans family.

Michael likes to “joke” with him that it is ironic that he and Alex have been “fucking for the longest out of all of them.” 

Alex never laughs. 

The two hundred or so of the Evanses' closest family and friends are fluttering about the large main hall and its adjoining rooms. Alex had never seen such holiday decorations before. Every square inch of the granite floored upper level adhered to the Christmas theme. Fully decorated wreaths adorn every door. White flowers doused in red and green glitter are stuffed wherever possible. There is a floor to ceiling tree, standing almost 25 feet tall and has a handful of jeweled ornaments on every branch. It is all somehow so gaudy and so classy. Merely standing amongst it all, with former classmates waving at him and Michael Bublé blasting through the installed speakers is giving Alex a near migraine. 

Liz had scarpered with Max as soon they entered the party. He couldn’t even spot them in the crowd. He assumes they are hiding away on the third floor. Or worse, the first-floor bathroom. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Rosa was currently bouncing between Isobel and Maria, flirting with one and bitching loudly and expressively with the other.

At least, Alex has Kyle Valenti as a buffer for now. His former bully turned good friend was busy prattling away about his residents and how quickly he is moving up in the ortho department. Alex is proud and tells him so. Kyle, dressed to the nines in charming velvet, moves on to a less appealing topic: romance. 

Just in the nick of time, Alex’s phone beeps, alerting him to a new email. It’s UNM again, wanting to talk to him about heading a statewide pilot project. He hasn’t told Arturo, or quite frankly, anyone yet. 

“That a new guy? Or is Guerin sending you one of his classic ‘u ups?’” 

Stretching to see his phone screen, Kyle raises both eyebrows and nods. He looks impressed, but Alex just locks his phone and waves him off. 

“ _Not_ Guerin, then.” 

Rubbing at his temples, he hopes he can avoid Michael all together tonight. Christmas Eve and Day are a given. But four days in a row?

He is ashamed to admit that he and Michael most often than not spent Christmas Eve night together in a carnal sense. 

They are only human and old habits die hard. 

But not this year. He wants to break this tradition off before Michael gets the chance to. 

Regardless of the activity in Alex’s old twin bed, Michael always spent those days half with Isobel and half at the Ortcheos. This had been true even when Michael’s parents were alive. Liz and Michael had been very close and Arturo and Nora got on like a house on fire. Alex is not so heartless that he would take such a needed reprieve from him. Just because Arturo felt obligated to have him in the house, that doesn’t mean Alex gets to mandate the holiday. 

It is just that Alex seems to be hellbent on mortifying himself in front of the man every time he sees him. 

For example, after Nora passed, Alex had thought Michael was living out of his truck. He offered to sneak him into his room at night. He tried to give him a guitar and his extra clothes. Michael, and the modest but generous life insurance policy payout he came into when he turned eighteen, never let him forget it. 

Alex, who was still huddled in a corner of the party with Kyle, could not move a single muscle without some part of his torso itching. So far, he had been on the receiving end of a litany of pitying looks. However, Alex took a fair amount of pleasure in the fact that they were not due to his ‘history’ or his cane, which he had left leaning against his suitcase and his potted roses at the Crashdown breakroom. He and the Ortecho sisters were ushered into an upstairs drawing room upon arrival. There, they found three horrendous Christmas sweaters of which they only put on at the behest of Ann Evans. 

Arturo got away with a simple bolo. Alex is stuck looking like the Grinch. 

He was working with Kyle on mustering up the courage to go and talk to Maria himself. He was gassing him up even though she and Alex had been close in high school but drifted after graduation. Even if he doesn’t know her as well as he once did, gets the other man’s worry. She could be very intimidating. But, Alex had heard rumors that she was no longer on the market and he didn’t want Kyle to hope needlessly. He was in the process of telling Kyle just that when his friend’s mother seemingly floated over to them, all grace. 

There are so many people at this party, most of which Alex did not wish to see. It took an extraordinary amount of effort for him to pull himself from Ms. Valenti’s hold on his cheeks so he could make his way to the large, wrap-around balcony of the Evans household. 

He welcomes the cold, a pleasant reminder of the season. He places his cup of coffee on the ground and pulls the sleeves of the sweater over his hands. Alex leans against the marble ledge and breathes in the New Mexico air. He basks in the relief of pressure off his legs and the silence. The music becomes just a dull hum with the glass doors closed. The sky above him is ever-present and alive. He watches the wispy clouds hide the moon for a moment, before moving on to change the terrain of the stars. 

“It’s a beautiful view out here. The stars were always what made me want to be able to fly as a kid,” a familiar voice says to his right, startling Alex out of reverie. His accent carried traces of the town they had both been trying to run from and at present, Alex did not enjoy it. 

Michael Guerin stood tall next to Alex. He leans his weight on his elbows, mirroring Alex’s stance. He is dressed head to toe in denim, complete with his signature work boots. Clearly, the man had not been wrestled into any Christmas themed garb. 

He regrets leaving Rosa and Kyle in the other room. Surely, one of them would have distracted Michael long enough so that he could have made a hasty retreat to the other side of the expansive estate. 

“My bad,” Michael says, taking a swig out of his reindeer-laden glass. “I didn’t mean to startle you, angel.”

Alex glowers. “You didn’t. And don’t call me that.”

“But, you _were_ an angel, Alex.”

“I was nine and it was embarrassing.”

Michael makes a considering noise. Tilting his head, he reasons, “It’s not Mrs. Bingley’s fault that you were the only one in the choir who could do the solo.”

“The costume, though. A heartless woman.”

“It was cute. _You_ were cute.” Michael hums and clears his throat. He laughs then, a touch mocking, a touch nostalgic. Michael gestures to Alex’s arms with his glass and smirks. “You’re not rocking the crutch tonight.”

“It’s a cane,” Alex snaps. “And _you_ have the bandana on.”

Michael had worn a bandana on his left hand ever since he mangled it in an accident while fixing a car. Michael told him he had been drunk as a skunk when it happened. He was able to get it fixed, but the nerve damage still caused him some pain and discomfort. Alex supposes the scarring was a bit gruesome to some, but it was no matter to him. The accident changed Michael, though. It was around this time that their relationship began to deteriorate more and more. He tried to press Michael for more details, but when he did, Michael would become very angry. He became reckless and was quick to yell. Alex just couldn’t handle it. He ran from him. He ran from this town. He ran from everyone.

Michael has never forgiven him for it.

Clucking his tongue as he bends down, Michael hands Alex his mug with a flourish. Their fingers brush together for alone a moment, but it warms Alex’s icy hands all the same. He was beginning to get quite a chill, but all traces of the cold are forgotten. 

Michael doesn’t move away. He is looking Alex in the eye as he lifts his hand, showing off the red bandana. A change from his usual plaid or black. 

“A request from Ann,” he explains. 

“Fuck her,” Alex says, quickly averting his gaze and playing at being preoccupied with nursing his coffee. 

The silence they share is not unpleasant, but it is tense. When Alex finally works up the courage to look at Michael, he finds him staring right back. As if Michael had never looked away at all. 

“So, how’s work been?”

Alex uses the steel will he has cultivated over the years to not pull his phone out and check his email yet again. “Fine, you?”

“Back with Uncle Walt.”

Michael had been with The Fitzwilliam Group, an agricultural engineering consulting firm, for a few years. Alex had heard through the grapevine that Michael had lost his job for showing up drunk one too many times.

Alex hums. “Sanders is a good man.”

“Damn straight.” Michael smiles for a few fleeting moments before his brows knit together and his mouth becomes a tight line. He comments with a laissez-faire tone, though he looks so grim and serious: “Saw you were hangin’ with Valenti.”

Alex bites back a groan. This was an old argument that Alex had very little interest in revisiting. 

“Yeah, he cleans up nice, so I decided to make him my date for the night,” Alex deadpans. 

Alex spares a look back towards the party, hoping maybe to find Kyle in the crowd and signal him for rescue. 

Michael grunts, causing Alex to snap all his attention back to him. He snarls, shaking his head as he clenched his teeth. “Word on the street he is trying to schtup Maria.”

“Schtup, Guerin? Really?”

“It’s just what I’ve heard,” he says with a mocking tone. “I’m just saying the dude seemed hellbent on getting with the whole group.”

“Excuse me?”

“He dates Liz. He is trying to nail Maria all year and now—” 

“In middle school,” Alex corrects. “After being with Liz in _middle school_. And you are certainly one to talk.”

“What?” 

Alex tries to ignore him in favor of marinating in unpleasant memories, but no one can enrage him like Michael Guerin. Especially, considering everything he has been told since he got into town regarding Michael Guerin and his particular prowess. The rumors of him and Maria have been all Alex has heard of since he got into town. It is a wonder that Kyle had not heard himself, yet. It is part of the reason he is encouraging Kyle so much. He hopes she will tell him so that Kyle can stop wasting his time on someone who is taken. If Maria doesn’t tell him soon, Alex will. Liz mentioned the other night that she was convinced Michael is destined to marry Maria (and then have a horrid, nasty divorce). It hurts Alex to hear, but he supposes that he long ago lost his right to claim hurt. 

But, that doesn’t mean that Michael gets to say and do whatever he wants. 

“I am just saying, if you have an issue, you should take it up with Maria.”

“Why the hell would I—Look, you think I am just gonna let go of what that shitstain did to me, to _you_ when we were kids then you got another thing comin’.” 

“He’s changed.”

Michael makes a lewd jerking off gesture. Alex shakes his head at the display in front of him and, partially, at himself. Because tongue out, shaking his fist and still cannot help but to bask in how fucking handsome Michael is. 

“You haven’t. You still love to bask in anger. It fuels you. I shudder to think what you would do without it,” Alex counters. 

Michael admonishes him, wagging a finger for emphasis. “No. I revel in chaos and I don’t tolerate fools. There is a slight difference, Mr. Manes. And thankfully, this town offers up endlessly, varied forms of absolute idiocy to delight in. Your family, for example”

He burns with shameful anger. Liz always told him that if he kept frowning the way he did that he would be wrinkled by twenty. He is thirty now and he feels that he looks every day of it. 

He says nothing for long enough that Michael actually notices. 

“Come on, now. I didn’t follow out into the cold just to gaze upon your pretty, frowning face.” 

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you think I look good still. You look good. You put on some weight, Manes? It suits you.” 

He had. Bread pudding was delicious. He didn't see why Michael felt the need to comment on every little thing about it all the time. 

“You know how I hate to reinforce bad behavior,” he snaps while pulling on the hem of his sweater with one hand and touching his jawline with the other. 

Michael winks and saunters closer. 

Alex ponders how he managed to be so inebriated that he is hitting on him already. He nearly asks him so, but he is interrupted by the sound of the large balcony doors slamming open and the clack of heels on stone. 

The jangle of the gold tresses of her gown complete Isobel Evans’ announcement of her presence. 

“I do hope it’s the fun kind of bad behavior,” she exclaims, clapping her hands together. 

Isobel seems to be freezing Michael to the spot with her gaze. Alex feels a little silly standing next to her. It is an unfamiliar feeling for him. Alex is a person who is only ever silly on purpose and in very specific, appropriate scenarios. 

But, Isobel is nearly his height and is in black tie from head to toe. Alex’s hair has been tousled by the wind and he is wearing an elf on a bright green sweater that clashes with his skin tone. He wonders if Ann sought to dress them so immaturely on purpose. Punishment for not assuming it was black tie casual? Or maybe for the fact that Liz and Rosa were likely to marry her only children? Alex knows where he would place his bets. 

“Michael,” Isobel exclaims, startling them both. “You’re empty, do you want a Shirley Temple, a mocktail, a—” 

“Coke or Sprite is fine,” Michael says. He grins at Alex’s startled look. He holds his arms out wide and moves his hips back and forth in a simple, but annoyingly attractive dance. “Eight months, clean and serene, baby.” 

Alex says nothing for a moment, trying to collect himself and get over the shock. 

Michael begins to fidget nervously. 

“That’s—that’s wonderful,” Alex says softly. He smiles, as he watches Michael relax back into himself. “Congratulations, Michael.” 

Alex hopes and prays that he sounds as sure and sincere as he feels. Michael’s beaming face tells him he was. So, he has one win for the night. 

Blessedly, he grins back at him. He is hoping that Michael will say something soon before Alex blurts out how proud he is of him. Or worse, ask him why he was still so rude sober. Neither of them speaks, both willing to wait forever for the other to make the first move. 

Isobel looks between the two of them, pursing her lips and batting her eyelashes before she plasters on a dazzling smile. She looks at Michael for a beat before asks if Alex is coming for dinner tomorrow night. 

Alex, glad for the distraction, embraced the opportunity for a topic change. “Oh, I promised Arturo that I would make an appearance.”

“Good. Well, I just wanted to check in with you both. It’s cold out here and I have a hot little number waiting on me. But, you two seem very comfortable. So, I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

Alex wants to seize the statuesque woman in front of him by the shoulders and force her to stay. “Isobel, that’s alright—”

A bell rings three times. Alex looks through the glass door to see Ann Evans, in an attractive, but blinding gold jumpsuit, holding a comically large handbell and a mallet. 

“That’ll be mother giving the fifteen-minute warning. See you later.” She points at the man she counts as a brother and begins walking back into the party, “Michael, meet me at the bar in ten minutes.” 

She holds open the door for a blue-haired man in a casual suit who Alex has never seen before she saunters back into the fray. He bypasses Michael and seems to be making a beeline for Alex. He tenses against the ledge, scanning his mind for any memory of slighting this stranger, but he comes up short. He readies himself to sucker punch the guy if need be. 

Michael beats him to the proverbial punch. 

“Alex meet Forrest Long, inadequate researcher and conspiracy theorist presenting as a liberal because he has blue hair. I thought this scene would be way too mainstream for yah.” 

The stranger rolls his eyes, sighing and shaking his head. He rocks back and forth on his stylish brown boots, curling his fingers in a beckoning gesture as if asking Michael to bring it on. 

“Forrest Long, Alex Manes: traveling librarian, good son, and genius pianist.” He turns and smirks at Alex before returning to facing Forrest. “He also used to suck me off at parties in high school.” 

All of the blood in his body rushes to his face as soon as the words leave Michael’s mouth. His own eyes very well pop right out of his skull. Alex is glaring at Michael's annoyingly perfect profile. Clenching the rapidly cooling mug in his hand, he takes a deep breath. 

Alex wishes could shove Michael off the balcony. Just take him by the arms and shove him right over, causing him to fall to either a horrendous injury or ideally, in this moment, a quick death. A murder most foul on the Evans’ estate. 

He steps forward and away from his impolite partner, towards Forrest. His mouth twists for a few moments before he swallows and says, “You, of course, must know Michael Guerin. Serial womanizer, who is aloof, rude, and a willful underperformer because he never evolved past thinking that made him look cool.” 

Forrest laughs. It is a pleasant sound, Alex wishes what followed it was as well. 

“Yeah, you are, like, so cute. But, this,” Forrest says, quirking an eyebrow and gesturing to the space between Michael and Alex, “Isn’t worth it. I bend the knee. See you around, Guerin.”

Michael salutes and smiles, smug and satisfied. Alex dislikes Michael’s hateful look directed towards anyone as much as he hates it directed at himself. 

Forrest shrugs at him and retreats to the warm embrace of the party crowd. His hands up in mock surrender. 

When he is through watching the nice stranger mill into the crowd, Alex, once again, finds himself chest to chest with Michael. 

“Was that guy going to flirt with me?”

“Probably.”

“You are an ass.”

Michael wears a nasty expression when he says, “I was just trying to save you from some trouble with your date.”

He spits out ‘date’ like the simple notion of Alex having one offends him. He reels, trying to piece together whatever the hell Michael is talking about. He doesn't have a date. He has never brought a date around Michael ever before. 

Michael neglected to extend him the same courtesy over the years. 

“You mean Kyle? Why would Kyle care if a man wants to flirt with me?”

“Wow.” Michael’s laugh is full of disgust and disbelief.

The man seemed nice and Alex hadn’t even been on a simple date in almost five years. 

“Regardless, there was no need to be so mean. He seems very... pleasant.” 

“Forrest is nice,” Michael admits, meandering towards the door and then holding it open. Once Alex is crossing over the threshold, Michael leans down to whisper in his ear. “And he’s Nazi obsessed, ‘Lex.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, ' _ah.'"_

* * *

Alex had been avoiding the den for a reason, and it seems that he had finally run out of excuses. 

When he and Michael rejoined the party, everyone was congregated there. 

“Mr. Evans is going to set up the piano and you know what will happen next.” Michael snipes and promptly leaves his side to head to the small bar where Isobel was unsubtly tapping her stiletto. “Have fun with Valenti,” is Michael’s parting shot.

Before Isobel even opens her mouth, Michael is already sagging to one side and rolling his eyes. 

These days, Michael seems to delight in aggravating Alex. He does not seem to delight in aggravating Isobel, though. They begin arguing almost immediately and Michael seems utterly pained by it **.** Isobel is animatedly gesturing to Rosa across the room, who seemed more sullen than Alex had ever seen her. 

He feels a tap on his shoulder before he can successfully push through the crowd to get to her. 

Ann Evans’ smile is all teeth, her eyes traveling from his face to the piano bench. 

He holds his palms up in a placating gesture. “Ann, please, I have told you I just can’t sing or play tonight.”

He returns to his search for Rosa but when he turns around, she is no longer by the door. As he spins back to scan the room for her, Ann is waiting and turning with him so she stays in his line of sight. Like a horrifying WASP hunting custom. When he ducks, she weaves. When he suggests universal healthcare, she claims she pays too much already in taxes. 

He finally spots Rosa over Ann’s shoulder. He breathes a momentary sigh of complete relief. She has a calmer glow about her. She is with Max, Liz, and her father. When they spot him with Ann, all four of them wince and shrug in unison. 

So, he has been abandoned here. 

“But you are so talented, it is a shame to hide that from the world. Don’t you think?” she teases, pouting a little. 

“You flatter me, Mrs. Evans, but I am afraid you do not lie well,” he says distractedly as he frantically searches for an exit route. 

But Ann Evans will not take no for an answer. When almost all the eyes in the room turn on him, he relents. He reckons the mortification of a three-minute song is less the absolute disgrace of running from the room in fear. Before he knows it, Ann is pulling him by the hand towards the center of the room where the piano had been set up and loudly announcing to the crowd that they had a concert pianist in their midst. 

He sets his drink down and flexes his fingers. As he approaches the bench, he, for the umpteenth time that night, notices Michael. He is half-way through the crowd, the bar and Isobel seemingly long-forgotten behind him. 

In the face of Michael and yet another demeaning display, he tries one last time to convince her. “Mrs. Evans, I was not being self-deprecating. I really have lost my touch.” 

Eyes nearly bulging, she whispers, “I _insist_.”

“He said ‘no,’ Ann,” Michael censures from the crowd. 

He wonders, despite himself, if anyone here other than Michael knows that Nora is the one who first taught him to play. What he remembers the most isn’t the lessons themselves, but how her hair was always perfumed, how the house was all music and greenery, the way she would carefully place him on the booster seat, her warm, clean hands adjusting his posture. His mother paid her ten dollars and whatever quarters she had in her pockets per session. 

This was back when she was in the process of leaving his father. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they had each other. The separation didn’t last long. But, he’ll always remember that handful of months consisting of eating overly salty fast food in the backseat, haphazard piano lessons, and he and his brothers playing in the motel parking lot as the best in his childhood. 

He misses his brothers so much. 

Michael was kind then. So shy and calm. A little sad like Alex, too, because his daddy died in a trucking accident a year prior. He always shared his Oreos with Alex. Told him the music he played was pretty. Sometimes, Michael would accompany him on guitar. Two little fifth graders bungling their way through waltzes and sonatas thinking they were destined for the Royal Opera House. 

That Christmas he gave Michael a Batman wallet. Michael gave Alex one of Nora’s prize-winning roses in a styrofoam cup, soil spilling out onto their hands. 

Then on New Years', Momma got back together with Dad. A few days later, Momma was gone for good, only to be heard from on birthdays. 

Alex was told to never come to the Guerin household again. 

Then Nora died and things got even worse. 

Alex resigns himself to his fate, he sits at the piano and begins to perform. 

With no time or interest in taking requests, he lets his fingers do the choosing. He flows into an old familiar melody for him. He adopts the posture he was taught without thinking. His wrists up and loose as his fingers move across the keys in a caress. Playing has always made his heart pound fantastically. He focuses a bit too much on the forte, for it has always been his favorite part. 

“Happy Christmas, you ass, I pray god it’s our last,” Alex mumbles under his breath.

He ends with none of the flourish and style that Nora instilled in him, but he hopes the performance would have made her proud, anyway. 

Sometime during the performance, Michael made his way to the head of the crowd. He barely hears him over the clapping. A comment so kind that he has to wonder if he imagined it: “What Nora hath taught shall ever put asunder.”

Alex recoils when he notices people taking photos and recording videos of him on their phones. Ann is delighted but has a slight sheen of sweat coating her brow, asks for Michael to duet with him. 

Michael waves her off playfully. He is firm when he says: “I don’t do that anymore.”

He only ever played after Nora died when he was drunk. Alex wishes he didn’t know this. But, he knows a lot about Michael due to him calling him inebriated over the years. Alex has heard about sorrow, ideas, and exploits. 

The music had begun thumping through the speakers again. Alex could feel a fair amount of tension leave his body once he stood up and put some distance between himself and the piano. He sought out some fresh air, again. 

"Planning your escape already, Manes?" 

Alex turns, grinding his teeth. 

Michael teases, eyes glinting. “You wanna break from getting paraded around like inspo porn?” 

"There's no call for cruelty," Alex says, smiling despite himself. "Ann… Ann believes she is encouraging."

"Bull _shit_." Michael scoffs, holding his punch glass almost delicately between two fingers. He takes a large gulp of his drink. His eyes dart around the room. “I wish you would have sung.”

“It’s like you said, Guerin. I don’t do that anymore." 

“I liked seeing you on the bench again. Made me think of Ma.” 

Alex softens at that. He nods and brushes off the glitter that Isobel had left on Michael’s jacket. Michael picks at the fuzz on his sweater, his hand lingering just over Alex’s heart. Alex holds his hand there with his own. Michael sways in place. Alex gives his fingers a gentle squeeze. 

The spell is broken when Isobel swoops in grabbing Michael by the collar. 

Michael waggles his eyebrows as he is dragged away. “And it reminded me of the little ditties you used to write for me in high school.” 

Alex flushes for the umpteenth time that night. He didn’t even know that Michael remembered the songs. That he knew Alex wrote about him. He assumes that Liz told him, thinking it was no big deal. The songs were, unfortunately, quite a big deal for Alex. He is humiliated. 

His pride utterly shot to hell, he wonders how he will possibly face any of them tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

Try as he might, Alex could not get out of accompanying the Ortechos to dinner. Arturo insisted that he met them at the Evans’ house at four sharp. He is on time and they all walk into the dining room arm-in-arm. 

Ann gives his all black ensemble an up and down, but says nothing as she led them into the dining room and told them to sit. 

Alex tries not to groan when he sees the seating cards. He is next to Michael, of course. He always is. 

The table was filled with what Rosa would describe as ‘bougie food.' The ingredients are plentiful, sumptuous, and exotic. With items ranging from a whole roasted fish to bacon-wrapped date. Mr. Evans makes quite a show of the Sausalito turkey, avocado, basil, cucumber, and soft cheese wraps. All of this is, blessedly, plated next to a large bowl of salsa verde at the center of the table.

No matter what, he can make something edible with that. 

Ann loads his plate with a bit of everything. As he didn’t care much for meat, he stuck to the sides and moved the rest about the plate, planning on feeding it to the dog. 

Alex prefers large dinners. He can eat and pepper in a chuckle when appropriate and get away with socializing. 

However, dinners with the Evanses and the Ortechos never fail to quickly become awkward. 

There was already a bit of tension as a result of Liz telling everyone that the Valentis would be joining them for dessert. Michael has been silent and slamming his glass down ever since. Alex knew the current direction the conversation was taking was not going to make anything any better. 

“I think it is perfectly natural for parents to have their favorites,” Mr. Evans says, swirling his glass of wine. The top of his balding head shines in the dining room's rich, low light. 

“Quite, we are all adults. I think we can admit that it is normal,” Ann laughs. She places a possessive hand on her husband's shoulder, showcasing her delicate wrist and polished rings. 

Neither of them makes any mention of Michael or Nora. He feels more sees Isobel staring at the side of Michael’s face. 

Sighing, Alex scoops his beef tips onto Michael’s plate and spoons the sauce on top. He is starting to anxiously cut them in half when Michael places his hand on Alex’s wrist. They share a tense smile. 

Alex mouths: “I’m sorry.” 

Michael shrugs casually. He gestures to Arturo who was trying to swallow down his creamed mushrooms as quickly as possible to add to the conversation. 

“Not me,” Arturo beams, jovial as ever. “I love and like all three of them equally. Liz is poetry in motion, Rosa is all passion, and my Alex keeps the boat level.” 

He is not looking at Liz or Rosa but he can hear their partners squeezing them and kisses their cheeks. He doesn’t want to cheers to a lie but raises his glass anyway. He hopes that Liz and Rosa don’t resent him. Or worse, pity him. 

The conversation promptly returns to their normal chatter: subtly talking about work while taking big, heaping leaps to avoid politics. 

Alex has never understood the notion of not discussing politics with family and friends. Shouldn’t they be the people who care the most? He knows Rosa and Liz feel the same. He has to assume the Isobel and Max also do. This a fictional play being improvised in real to appease a pair of desert millionaires. 

Seeing as he has no role to play, Alex leans back, clasping his hands in his lap. He flinches when he feels a hand on his thigh. He feels a familiar petting with the thumb and relaxes further back into his seat. He turns to his left, seeing that Michael’s tense scowl has been replaced with a soft look.

“Hear that, Manes? You're the Ortecho ballast.”

Their hands brush again under the table. “You wanna show me the garden?”

Michael raises an eyebrow and is then pushing his chair out with a loud screech. He wipes his mouth and throws his napkin on the table. 

“Alex and I are gonna take a walk.”

Ann, Max, and Isobel tense up. Before Mr. Evans can scold them, Alex stands. 

“I’m sorry,” he grimaces. He makes a show of rubbing his leg thigh, “I really need to stretch my legs.”

“Oh,” Ann says pityingly. “Of course, sweetie.”

Mr. Evans looks annoyed but waves them on. 

Michael makes a placating gesture with his hands and bows. Alex tries and fails to hold in a bark of laugh. He tosses Michael his jacket that was laid across the back of his chair and winks. 

Fuck up a rich person's schedule, by any means necessary. Momma always said that. 

* * *

The sun is beginning to set as the pair of them walk in silence for a few yards. Breathing in the fresh air and taking in the small waterfall that the family recently had installed on to the little pond. 

The grounds, the house, the people who own it, so opulent it becomes satirical. 

Michael shoves his hands in his pockets. He thanks him for giving him an out. His jean jacket hugs the lines Michael's body when he hunches over to look at tree's trunk. His breath catches in his throat. His zips his own black jacket up to his chin, hoping to conceal the pulsing in his throat. He speeds up to match Michael's stride. 

“Holidays suck for me too, I get it. Also, I like to walk.”

“I know you do,” Michael says pleasantly. “In more ways than one.”

Considering he is stuck on expansive grounds with the man and the reality that his leg was starting to bother him, Alex chooses to ignore that stab in his direction. 

Ostensibly troubled by his outburst, Michael begins ranting about his grand plan to xeriscape the entirety of Roswell to fill the silence. Alex listens intently. Letting Michael's pleasant voice wash over him as night begins to fall into place around them. 

They are circling back to the house when Michael stops. Placing his hands in pockets, he tugs on the belt lops with his thumbs. 

Alex touches the small angelita daisies. It still perplexes him how they manage to bloom in winter. 

“So, all we have to do is get the county commission on board and we can be in business by next June.”

Michael inhales deeply and looks at Alex expectantly. Blinking and considering all he has heard, Alex runs through the systems and organizational goals Michael had explained to him and comes to a fast conclusion: “Your plans are too diffuse.”

“My plans are not _fucking_ diffuse.” 

“Have you considered how the transplantation of these magically fully grown honey locusts would work? And you’ll get the people in this neighborhood to agree to it? Hardly. Look around.”

The Blackfoot Daisies and sunflowers were lovely. But, the extensive sprinkler system is a stain on the land and spoke for itself. 

Michael is still pouting, digging in the ground with the toe of his boot when they come to the archway. Sprigs of mistletoe still hang from the garland wrapped around the brass arch. A remnant from the engagement photos Liz and Max took a few days ago. 

The flowers will likely wilt by tomorrow evening. They are beautiful. 

"Pretty, but no Nora," Alex remarks. 

Michael clears his throat. His captivating eyes are brimming with tears. From the wind or the mention of his mother, Alex isn't sure. Before Alex has a chance to apologize for both, Michael steps forward.

“You wanna have a go,” Michael asks from underneath his eyelashes. He flicks his head towards the mistletoe for emphasis. 

Alex is not interested in having yet another argument with Michael about how he does not what to be a part of him cheating on Maria. Perhaps, they have an open relationship. Either way, Alex doesn’t want to be partied to it.

“Nah, I think Isobel and Rosa should be the next in line, right?”

Michael scoffs. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

If Alex was disturbed by Michael’s behavior when he is supposed to be in a relationship, he is flabbergasted by this admission. Said so voluntarily and without remorse. 

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Michael enunciates, swinging his arms listlessly at his sides. He has the body language of a man discussing paint color, not the future of his sister. “I told Iz as much.”

“You did _what_?” 

“I’m just being realistic. How long can their happiness last when they are all desire and no honesty. They're better as friends, don't you think?”

“So, it’s Rosa’s fault.”

“I never said that,” Michael says in a patronizingly slow manner. 

“You are such a—” 

His phone makes a jingle-jangle noise in his pocket. Alex, thinking it may be someone from Washington, wrenches the cell from his pocket. He angrily punches in his passcode. He sighs and opens a text from Flint in the group chat he has with his brothers. He asks if he is interested in going with them to meet up with Jesse. 

“That UNM?”

“No, it’s—how do you know about that?”

“Friends in high places,” Michael dismisses. “What did they say?”

“It’s Flint. He wants to know if I want to see Dad before I leave.” 

Michael balks and then lets out a loud laugh. “Did you already tell him to fuck off or did you wanna call?”

Alex fidgets, picking at his cuticles and rocking from foot to foot.

Michael’s mouth drops open before snapping shut. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“He’s _dying_ , Michael.”

“Who gives a fuck?” he barks. 

Alex blinks. His eyes feel hot and his heart slams in his chest. “I care.”

“Why? I get your brothers, but Jesse? Fuckin’ Jesse Manes who left you with a bum leg and made us—made you so scared you couldn’t even look at me for almost three years? That piece of shit. You are considering seeing that psycho piece of shit?”

Alex opens his mouth to speak, but Michael isn’t quite done. 

"He is still my father. For better or for worse, and I have an obligation as his son to-- 

“You know what? You don’t even know the half of it. You have no obligation that scumbag."

"What about my brothers?" 

"Jesus, I see why you shake like a dog and wanna skip town the minute you get here. Do you have to sacrifice every inch of yourself? You have to believe in the tiniest scrap of good in someone until what? What was charming when we were children is just plain stupid now.”

By the time his body catches up with his mind, Michael is already walking towards the house. 

Alex shivers and follows behind, favoring his good leg. He speeds up to get a step or two ahead of Michael. The moment he no longer has the other man in his line of sight, Alex feels the tears trailing down his cheeks. Hot, large tears that he subtly catches with his sleeve just before they have the opportunity to slide off his chin. He is pitiful and he just wants to get in the house and away from Michael as soon as possible. 

He nearly runs to the massive double doors once they are in sight. He climbs the stairs by two, cringing at the twinge in his leg. He takes both knobs in hand and pulls hard. They don’t budge. He huffs and tries again. 

“Stupid door,” he barks to himself.

“Calm your pert ass down, Manes, let me just—Alex? Alex, are you okay?” 

Trying to shield his face from the other man, Alex turns away. But, Michael is insistent. He worms his body closer to Alex. His hands, gracious and resolute, are nearly touching Alex’s cheeks when they jump at the abrupt, loud knock to their left. 

A caustic huff of indignation was all the warning Alex receives from Michael before he draws back. Then, Kyle appears in the window, frantically waving, holding up a deck of cards. 

“I was going to ask if you wanted to play chess, but I guess that’s out of the question now.”

Michael leans over him and twists the handle just so. The doors open an inch, just enough for them to shoulder it open. 

In the opposite direction of where Kyle is patiently standing, Michael takes his leave.

“Michael, please, you don’t have to go,” Alex calls after him. 

The sound of Michael’s boots heavily hitting the stone floor is his only reply. 

Kyle wraps an arm around his shoulders, giving him a partial noogie. “‘Sup, dude. Who pissed in his eggnog?” 

* * *

After a dozen or so sessions of rummy, Alex is tired and ready to leave. Kyle reminds him that he is going to Denver tomorrow and doesn't know when he'll be back. Alex tries to convince him to stay, but Kyle waves him off. Says he has nothing to stay for. 

With Arturo gone to deal with the evening rush, Alex kisses the remaining Ortechos goodbye and then thanks his hosts as his mother taught him to do. 

“Where has your fiancé gotten to?”

Liz smiles shyly at the word, which is why Alex says it as frequently as he can. He takes her hands in his and she swings them back and forth. 

“He and Isobel are off somewhere. An important discussion, apparently. I think it’s about presents, so—”

“I just have to give Max his book back,” He interjects, patting his backpack straps. "Presents? They won’t mind if I drop in then."

Liz looks a little confused as she says, “Okay. They’re in the pantry.”

She points to a pale yellow door across the hall in the large kitchen. 

“Gotcha, thanks.” He smacks a final kiss to her cheek. “See you at the house?”

“Maybe. Max and I might just head home.”

Alex hopes he succeeds in hiding his disappointment. “Duh, I’m stupid. Sorry, I’m so tired I transported myself back to 2009. I’ll see you tomorrow night, then? Christmas Angels prep?”

“You got it.”

“See you then,” he shouts as he crosses the hall and makes his way to the pantry doors. 

His fist stops just short of knocking when he hears three voices arguing. He winces and decides it is best to leave the book on the counter. 

As he places the book down, he hears, clear as a bell: Michael Guerin's voice. 

_“Well, excuse me, Iz for not wanting to waste any more of my time on a washed-up punk with a stick up his ass and enough daddy issues to make a thousand shrinks' retire.”_

Alex swallows and turns on his heel to leave, but pumps into a crystal snowman precariously placed on the island. He scrambles to catch it. He manages to do it, but not without knocking over bucket of silverware. He watches in horror as multiple handfuls worth of cutlery clashes onto the floor. 

He freezes as he hears the door slowly creak open. The rusty hinges squeaking with effort. At least he hadn’t ducked or tried to run. There is some dignity in standing in your humiliation he imagines. 

Scooping as fast as he can, he wrestles the silverware back into its container. He places the bucket back on the counter softly. He hisses as he stands, fully favoring his right leg. He regrets not just bringing his damn cane.

When he finally plucks up the courage to look in the direction of the pantry door, he sees three faces he knows all too well blinking back at him through the tiny opening of the door.

He tries to smile, but it is more of a grimace. He tries to chuckle, but it sounds more like a hack. 

“Sorry. Sorry, I was just going to return this book to Max, but I can just—you’re all coming tomorrow, so I will just—I left it on the counter. Thank you. I liked it. I realize now I just could have given it to Liz. So. Goodbye. I mean, good night.”

He is barely out of the kitchen when he hears what sounds like four hands slapping someone’s chest and after a few more smacks, Isobel shouting, “Real nice job, asshole.” 


	3. Chapter 3

The Christmas Angels was an event that the Crashdown had participated in for as long as the café had been open. Providing almost all the meals for the program for the homeless and in need was an undertaking that required all hands on deck. There were cakes to bake, beans to season, and full, warm containers to box. 

Despite the need for bodies, Alex is hotly annoyed when Michael Guerin marches into the diner with a very pissed off Maria in an elf costume on his tail. Her face set with the same levels of annoyance that Alex currently felt. 

They really did have a lot in common. Or, perhaps, Michael just had that effect on people.

She roughly pokes him on the chest twice. When she turns to Liz and Rosa, her body language returns to its usual liquid form. 

Where Maria goes, joy seems to follow. The Counting Crows bumps from the speakers and soon everyone in the dining room is dancing. Isobel and Max shimmy from side-to-side. Liz dips Maria so low that her curls are brushing against the floor. Rosa is gloomy but gives Michael a firm smile when he bumps his hip into hers.

Watching through the cook's window, Alex cannot help but imagine taking to that floor with him. In having the delight of having Michaels about his waist again. A fantasy highlighted by failure. 

Maria hugs everyone goodbye soon after. The Pony has stuff to put together for Christmas Angels, too, and they open in an hour. 

"Bye, guys. Michael, come tomorrow or I will kill with my brain."

She stands in the doorway, hands on her jingle bell laden hips, waiting for Michael to look up from his work. He doesn't. Maria sighs, affixing her elf hat back on her head and leaves in a rage. 

When Alex looks at Michael, glaring as he shoves rolls into paper bags, he tries to take in only his faults. The size and crookedness of his nose. His unruly, curly hair and the roughness of his hands. 

But this attempt was futile, at best. Because to look at Michael was to take in all of him. The loveliness of teeth, the sharp, appealing angles of his face. His strong jaw and deep hazel eyes, who darkened upon any injustice and brighten when taking in a child’s ingenuity. 

Alex looms silently in the kitchen. He observes the conversation but blissfully takes no part. 

Liz eventually stomps over to him. Her red lips stand out in stark on contrast to her green dress. 

“Are you just gonna stand here working your fingers to the bone alone or are you gonna join in the family at some point this century?”

He glances at the back of Michael's head, shaking back and forth as he argues quietly with Rosa by the front door. 

“I’ll give 3020 a shot.”

Liz settles for rolling her eyes and groaning. “We’re going to go to do the drop-off. Wanna come?”

“Nah, I’ll stay. Clean up and start the prep for tomorrow.”

Arturo always has a big rush on Christmas Eve morning. They usually make more money in that single shift they then do in a typical week. 

“Okay,” Liz whines. She gets to the door and announces over her shoulder, “You know we want you to come, right?” 

Alex smiles, “Of course.”

He settles into his routine, beginning with the dishes. He is elbows deep in bubbles when the bells above the door jingle. Alex jogs out front, expecting Rosa to be looking for the van keys. 

Instead, he finds Michael is leaning against a booth, draining a glass of water. He slams the cup down on the table, making a satisfying sound. 

“I figured I’d stay and help yah out.” 

Alex frowns and crosses his arms. 

“See,” Michael says, nodding towards the parking lot, where Isobel is hovering behind Rosa with an imploring look on her face. “I didn’t ruin nothing. This isn’t the 1800s, Isobel doesn’t do somethin’ just ‘cause I say so.”

"Oh, yes," Alex exclaims, voice dripping with impassivity and derision. "You have had no impact on their romance, at all." 

Michael moves closer, his stupid hazel eyes tracking Alex’s brown ones. 

“What would you recommend to facilitate and maintain a relationship? Romantic style, I mean.”

“Kindness. Whether you thought they were a washed-up punk with a stick up their ass and daddy issues or not.”

Turning on his heel, he leaves Michael gaping in the dining room. 

* * *

It takes him a moment to recover, they are finished with the dishes and moved on to prep work by the time Michael speaks again. 

Alex was enjoying the music they had chosen to play, but Michael has always had a lovely, biting, deep slicing parry. 

“So, you came all this way to not see your family but to hang with Valenti and to try to forgive daddy. You get a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Abuse or somethin'? Or are we just not good enough for you?”

Alex feels flush with embarrassment and anger at the insinuation. He knows he can be hyper-focused and that he was prone to melancholy, but it is rare to have someone point it out so shrewdly. 

He hides his sniffle behind a cough.

“Well, isn’t the very nature of holiday forgiveness? And the way you behave, is it any wonder that I try to avoid you?”

Michael recoils. Alex wishes that he didn’t care. That the thoughts and opinions of this man were nothing to him. 

“What? You seek me out just to insult me. I was letting you and Maria have time with Liz and Rosa. I apologize for yet another misstep on my part.”

Michael covered hand twitches once, twice, and then a third time before Alex reaches out to steady it. He takes the knife out of his grip and hands him a spoon. Alex begins cutting while Michael scoops. 

“Wait. What do you mean me  _ and  _ Maria?”

It is a wonder how truly cruel Michael could be when he was playing at not-trying.

Perhaps he wasn’t trying. He just thought of Alex so little.

He wasn’t sure which was worse. 

“There is no me and Maria.”

Alex chuckles. “Don’t lie. Maria deserves better than that.”

“How could you think that we are together when you and I are—when I—you’re a jackass.”

“Thanks.” Alex laughs, “The feeling is mutual.” 

“Maria can’t stand the sight of me on a good day. I am doing handiwork for the New Years' reopening of the Pony. She followed me and fuckin’ ripped me a new asshole for a whole block 'cause I didn't finish the lighting today. So, I told her there are so few people I love and who I like and I wanna be them for the next few days.” Michael leans over and spits in the sink. Breathing through his nose harshly, he continues, “You know, the more time I spend around other people, the longer I live, the more I think I was right all along. That humans are just dependent, needy, malicious creatures. I know you think less of me for that.” 

“Everyone has imperfections,” Alex reasons. “And yours is to hate everyone forever.” 

Michael’s head shot up, a scowl slowing working its way onto his face. “And yours is to just be a pompous doormat. You forgive everyone for everything and yet, you are the harshest judge. An infuriating and charming quality.” 

Alex nods sharply. An acknowledgment, nothing more. Michael is not wrong. 

Michael thinks he is above it all. That he is so much more clever than the rest of them because he never shows what he feels and believes to have a read on anything and anyone. 

Little does he know that he is simply arrogant and scared. And that Alex has had his number since they were children. 

“And you think you are better than everyone in the room, while also being unworthy of their presence. There has to be a clinical diagnosis for that. Just because you are self-taught and highly intelligent in science and mechanics does not mean that you know everything.”

“You think I’m highly intelligent?”

Alex sneers. “That and that you resent me for leaving.”

Michael slams down the cutlery in his hands. A loud, clang against the steel table. Alex hears him huffing and puffing. “I certainly fuckin’ don’t. Your dad wasn't gonna stop. You had to go.”

“You are angry with me that I couldn’t stand up to him. That I let him control me even I after I wasn’t in his house. That I was afraid and I ran. Yes, for that, I do think you resent me.”

“No, I don’t,” Michael snarls. His hands are shaking as opens a can of beans. “But, I am beginning to resent the implication.”

Michael moves closer and before Alex can back away, he is being pushed down onto the stool below him.

“You look flush, sit down. You were running around all day today and yesterday without your cane. Did you have your emergency meds with at least" Michael chastises him. 

Alex can't remember if he brought them or left them in Washington. He feels trapped in and panic brewing. 

"Take a deep breath.”

Alex is inhaling and exhaling shallowly. He clenches his teeth and then his fists. “Do not tell me how to breathe.”

“You are a stubborn, prideful mule, Alex Manes.”

“Prideful? Choose your lane, Guerin. How could I be guilty of pride? What with my shit family, my cowardice, my fucked up head, the way I dress, apparently. For fuck’s sake. By your standards, I should have no pride at all.” 

“You do contain multitudes,” he teases. He sobers quickly, upon seeing Alex’s unchanging expression. He shakes his head furiously. “That is not what I meant.” 

Alex scoffs. His eyes flicker to the ground. There is a warm grip on his chin, when he looks up he finds himself pinned to the stop by Michael’s heated gaze. 

“If you aren’t angry with me, then why do you care if I see him with my brothers?”

“He’s dangerous, Alex.”

“To me. My brothers will be there and I can defend myself. I could defend you, too, now.”

He became a second-degree black belt in Krav Maga when he was twenty-one. Michael knows this. Were this about anything else, Alex would be charmed. Having watched carefully Michael's unwavering loyalty over the years. His fierce, fierce thrum of protectiveness that lives so deeply within him. It is so heartbreaking, that the best part of Michael is also the worst. 

It also brings out the worst in Alex, who is always seeking to kill the need that is etched into his bones: to care and to be cared for. 

“Just promise me you won’t go and see him. Call him. If he wants to make amends, then he’ll understand and take the opportunity.”

“Michael, are you finally going to tell me what happened while I was away?”

That is how Liz always put it. Alex had to go "go away." It was a clean way of saying something without really saying it, Alex supposes. 

“Yeah," Michael smiles nastily. "The world kept turning.”

“Jesse mentioned that.”

“Mentioned what?”

“He came to see me right before I checked out."

Michael blanches at that. This reaction only serves to affirm what Alex had always believed: that he should never tell anyone about his father coming to see him that day. No one would ever understand. 

"He said he went to see you. To talk sense into you. That you were… critical of my choice to do inpatient. That you felt, I can’t remember how he worded it: like you had to take care of me because I was fragile. What did he say to you, Michael?”

In his normal fashion, he deftly skips over the most important question. 

“Alex Manes, I can think of a lot of words to describe you then and now and fragile ain’t one of them. Your father told you I spoke of you in such a way and you believed it? Is your self-worth that low? Rumors of what that wretch said mean nothing to me. Daddy dearest says some bullshit and you take it as law? You thought I saw you as what? A means to end and you still let me—Alex, we’ve done it a million times.”

_ Because I’m still in love with you, you obtuse moron,  _ Alex thinks. 

“I was eighteen!” he cries. “I thought you wanted—”

“I didn't want Maria then or now or anyone else. I wanted you. Just you.” 

“I don’t believe you.”

Michael, inexplicably, appears crestfallen. “I fuck you every time you’re in town for what? My health? Out of habit?” 

“I believe you about Maria, but I don’t—I don’t believe you on the rest. Christmas makes everyone feel lonely. You can still come and hang with me, Arturo, of course. I—you haven’t even tried to make it right with Rosa.” 

Any trace of grace is gone. Michael just bulldozes through Alex's worries to get back to what he wanted to discuss. 

“Kyle Valenti doesn’t have an opinion on you meeting up with dear old dad? Your boyfriend doesn’t think it is a bad idea? Ironic, huh? That you wanna turn over for the two people who hurt you the most. You like getting on your hands and knees for Valenti so much that you just ignore how much Maria adores him? I know how much you like making the beast with two backs, but how pathetic and desperate are you?”

Chuckling darkly, Alex bites down on his tongue. 

"You sure are spending an awful lot of time trying to schtup someone who you think is getting it from Valenti. You that guy now, Guerin?"

"Oh," Michael mocks, his eyes are wide and wild. His brilliant, expansive chest rising and falling more rapidly with every passing moment. "Most ardently." 

Fire spits from Alex's mouth before he has the presence of mind to stop it. He steps in Michael's space, nose-to-nose. They are both seething. 

“Kyle is my friend. _Only_ my friend. Which you would know if you paid a speck of attention to anything beyond what is in front of your massive nose. You are sober and I am so glad for you. But, I have to finally say that I used to admire you for your honesty. I envied your courage. Your uniqueness, your utter nerve to get up again and again. Life has been so harsh to you and you... you were always still so beautiful. I understand cruelty. But, you seem to choose every moment to succumb further to it. You have become just a vicious, resentful, bitter shell of yourself. Nora would be ashamed of you.” 

Michael's face is horrifically blank, but he lurches forward as if he had been physically punched in the gut. 

Alex shoves past him. He doesn’t fetch anything beyond a coat. He leaves Michael to clean up the rest. Or leave it for him for when he returns. 

Alex doesn’t care either way. 

He has to get to the Pony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looking for some last minute christmas gifts? check out this list of native owned companies: http://www.beyondbuckskin.com/p/buy-native.html


	4. Chapter 4

Alex ran. He ran as fast as he could, given his leg and the black ice traps along the sidewalk. His boots slipping and sliding against the wet concrete. Goosebumps decorating his neck, he hikes his jacket collar up to just under his ears. 

He jogs, huffing and puffing, and did not stop when his leg seized up. He had to get to Maria before Kyle got on that bus to Colorado. He had to because Alex had done something terrible as a consequence of his pride. 

Listening to rumors stewed in town he knows to be rotten to its core. A beyond childish act. He has never been accused of being rash, of being thoughtless, and yet here he was, feeling as though he was precisely that. 

Rash and thoughtless. 

_ God.  _

**Fuck.**

He wants to saw his own hands off in penance for what he said to Michael. 

How could he be so heartless? How could they both be so heartless?

Almost all of him was chained to his bloodline, so he guesses he comes by it naturally. He doesn't know how his brothers escaped it. Perhaps, Alex was marked at birth. 

No matter how hard he tried to feel a part of the Ortecho clan, he knew he didn’t fit. He knew he was less than, but just because he is a mess doesn’t mean he needs to spread to everyone else. He never clung to anything or anyone. He always cut ties and booked it before he could get attached. 

He was attached to someone and look at what happened to him. Look how Michael had come to despise him. How just when he felt things were changing, that maybe life could be different, that very same man proved precisely why it could not come to be. 

He isn’t so arrogant to assume that all of the change in Michael had been his fault, but to know he had any part of it. He could hardly bear it. He would be damned if he let anyone else suffer a similar fate if he had anything to do with it. 

He rounds the corner to the Pony. It is aglow in golden light. Michael had done a beautiful job, even if it was half-finished. 

The bar is bustling with people. Some happy and celebrating the season with friends. Some sad and alone, hoping to find some comfort in a stranger. The patrons have exchanged the assumed Christmas music for 70's glam rock. Maria, still in her elf costume, is walking the floor with a clipboard, stopping every few feet to scribble things down. A list of things for Michael to fix, Alex assumes. He calls her name. When Maria finally spots him, she smiles. 

“I am not dating, Kyle!” he blurts out as soon as she is in earshot. 

Maria stops in her tracks. “You’re not?”

“Did you even ask him? Why do none of us ask questions anymore?” he wonders aloud. “You’re not dating Michael?”

Maria plays at gagging. “No offense, but gross. Guerin is like my cousin.”

“Kyle is like  _ my  _ cousin.”

Maria sucks in a smile and asks him to follow her to her office where it is quiet. She shuts the door behind her. She motions for him to sit, so he takes the wooden chair in the corner. He rubs his hands on his thighs in hopes to get some feeling back into them. The walk over had been so cold. Maria swings herself onto her desk. Her legs dangling, she sways her body from side to side. As if she is dancing to a song in her head. 

Alex cuts to the chase: “So, Kyle.” 

Maria takes a deep breath and her body comes to a still. “I didn’t want him to feel like he had to out himself to me, I guess?” she explains. “I didn’t think anything was going on until a few days ago. I mean, you didn't even get into town until early this week. I figured Kyle would’ve mentioned it, I mean we always use protection but—”

Alex chokes. Kyle had neglected to mention that particular bit of information. 

Good for Kyle. 

"But, it’s  _ all  _ Guerin would talk about since yesterday. He was so adamant. Babbling about how we were kindred spirits of missing out on the best or something? I guess I always thought maybe we were like you and Guerin? Just two hot people who are constantly pushed together and friction. Like, not every little thing has to be some cosmic, Austen shit. But, then I started, like, feeling shit and—Oh, fuck. I did not realize you still felt that way. Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

Alex startles at her sudden change of tone. “What are you talking about?”

“Alex, babe, your face.”

Unconsciously, Alex reaches up to touch his face, hoping to find whatever laid him bare in front of her and flick it away like a bug. 

“I didn't know you still felt that way, I—I mean, we all knew in high school, it’s—” 

“It’s fine,” Alex snaps, shaking his head violently as if he could shake her words clean from his mind. Michael and himself were not a priority now or ever. “Kyle really likes you, Maria. Don’t push him away. Go to his place and tell him how you feel and I bet he will tell you I’m right. Call him now, actually. Right now.” 

"He's half-way to Denver by now."

"No, we can still catch him." 

He fishes out his phone and pulls up Kyle’s contact info. He presses call and holds the phone up to his ear. 

“Alex, I’m sorry," she pleads. "You should have heard Guerin yesterday. I remember when you were kids and you went to that place. Michael was just... oh, God. I can still remember the sound of his voice. I really do think he still--"

He holds his hand up in a signal for her to stop and smiles tightly. “It’s fine, don’t feel bad.”

“Maybe I needed to feel bad. I was kind of shoving my nose where it didn’t belong. I project, I assume.”

“We all do that from time to time. You of all people shouldn’t ever feel bad. You're a wonderful person. Speaking of: Kyle, I have Maria here. Hold on.” 

He holds out the phone to her. She hesitates. Alex raises both eyebrows in a challenge and stretches his arm towards her. She waits a beat and then snatches it. She holds it close to her ear, cupping both hands around the phone. 

"Kyle, I think we need to talk," she says quietly. 

Alex lifts both arms and holds them in a bodybuilding pose he had seen so many times in his youth. All three of his brothers loved bodybuilding competitions. 

"Be strong," he whispers. 

He tries to give her privacy when they genuinely begin talking it out, but he just can’t manage it. He is transfixed. He watches her face. Maria, not a typically expressive person, has gone from tense to beaming. 

He can hear Kyle’s slightly warped voice through the phone. The phone line goes dead. Maria is patting her face dry and then getting herself together to go outside to greet him because he is coming straight to the bar.

They walk out and wait for him in the parking lot together. After a moment, Alex, because he has nothing to lose, asks, "Have you ever said something to someone that you meant at the moment, but immediately regretted it after?"

"Of course." 

"I really wish I could take something back, but you can't ever really do that, can you?"

"I don't know, Alex. I just don't know." 

As Kyle’s car comes into view, Alex rises to leave. Maria touches his arm lightly. 

“You should ask Guerin about his hand. I don’t know why. I just have this… feeling.”

Alex nods but makes no promises. 

As he reaches the sidewalk and begins his journey back, he cannot help himself but turn around. He sees Kyle picking Maria up and swinging up onto his shoulder. He can hear their laughter from where he stands. 

He tries to feel happy for her, for them. 

He is, really. 

Still, he hurts for what he lacks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Learn about and give to the NDN COLLECTIVE COVID-19 RESPONSE PROJECT: https://ndncollective.org/covid-19/phase-2/


	5. Chapter 5

The falling snow is turning to slush at his feet, but Alex takes his time walking back to the Crashdown. He in is no rush, even with the flurries rapidly turning into heavy snowflakes. Even if he were, his leg wouldn't allow it. So, he just watches the lights twinkling and the silhouettes of families in the windows.

It is marvelous.

He hates this town and yet, it is marvelous. It's beautiful in the snow.

He is surprised to find himself feeling very pleased when he makes it to Main Street and sees, even though it is getting late, people are still out and about. Something clenches in his chest, watching these people milling about the street together. Getting their last-minute shopping in, or just enjoying their family and the snow.

His fingers, wet from the snow, slip around his phone screen. Greg, answers after three rings.

"Hey, I don't think I'm ready to—"

"You can't come with us this weekend."

He stops short. The Crashdown only a few yards away.

"Oh, okay. I was just about to say I don't think I'm ready."

"Yeah, I don't think I ever want to take you there?"

Alex starts walking again, hoping that Greg would eventually fill in the silence, would explain himself.

"He said some really disturbing shit that I will not repeat to you, so just trust me. I just... he said he doesn't want you at his funeral, Alex."

He doesn't know what to say. He just keeps walking until the Crashdown's neon UFO is all he can see. He takes a deep breath and makes for the front doors.

Michael Guerin stands at the entrance, stetson in hand. Snowflakes decorating his hair and jacket. His curls are rapidly becoming plastered against his head in huge ringlets.

He stares at Alex with a determined sort of expression. And yet, he trembles. Alex could chock some of that to the cold, but Alex also could recognize fear. Michael was an expressive sort, to see him desperately trying to remain blank made Alex feel uneasy.

Greg is still desperately trying to explain the situation to him. He puts the phone back up to his ear.

"I understand. Listen, I gotta call you back."

"Is Guerin around? Anyone? Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'm always okay."

Standing there, listening to Greg's hitched breathing, looking at Michael's stoney expression, Alex holds on to every last shred of strength he has to not cry. He tries to say goodbye, but only a small little whine comes out.

He hears rustling on the other end and then Flint's low timbre, "Hey, we love you, little brother. You got that?"

"I got it," he says and hangs up. He looks at the ground, the dirt and water collected on his boots. He blinks, lifts his head, and plasters on a neutral expression. “Are you alright, Guerin? You look sick.”

"Who was on the phone?"

"No one. did you forget something?"

Michael’s chuckle is languid, matching the slow movement of his head hanging back, as if annoyed.

“You were really haulin’ ass. I know you’re great at runnin’ away, but I was worried. Arturo went to bed. So, I stuck around.”

“I’m fine, but I have nothing to say to you.”

He tries to reason with himself that they were both shivering due to the cold. Alex had never dreamt that Michael would stay here and wait for him. He had never done that before. He always seemed to delight in mocking Alex when he would take off, in fear or otherwise. He doesn’t understand why tonight is so different. He could not fathom it. He hates feeling caught off guard. More than that, Alex loathes the way that Michael’s mere presence causes him to lean into the man’s warm space. How the simple act of saying his name, makes him lose balance in more ways than one.

He hates, in these moments alone, when Michael looks at him. He looks at him like they are seventeen again, with desire and care. He hates that he knows nothing about Michael. He hates that he knows everything about Michael. Most of all, he hates that Michael sees him as he is. Nothing more, nothing less.

It hurts to be caught in his gaze.

Despite this, he has to keep his wits. He has to constantly remind himself what Michael had done by planting seeds that nearly led to the separation of Rosa from the person she truly loved. Why Michael had done this horrid thing, said what he did to these people he claims to love, Alex did not know.

“You saw me. Why are you still here?” Alex is digging out his keys to the front, before realizing he had neglected to grab them off of the back table. He huffs and begins to trudge to the back door. He had to get away from Michael as soon as possible before he fell apart completely.

“Come on, Alex,” Michael whines. “You know why. Surely you know why.”

Alex snorts. He starts to gingerly take each step up the staircase. With his back Michael, Alex felt rude. But, he could be as rude and dismissive as Michael Guerin if he needs to be.

Michael says next, so softly that he almost misses it entirely: “You must know.”

It is that gentle tone that Alex so very yearned for, that makes him turn back around and go back down the steps.

“Well, you’ll be thrilled to hear that it was Greg on the phone and Dad doesn’t want to see me after all. He just wanted to tell me that he doesn’t want me at his funeral.”

“You’re right. I’m delighted to hear it.”

Alex huffs. Shaking his head, he doesn’t think he can stomach looking at Michael for another moment. But, he won’t be the first to flinch. He is still too angry. Blood rushing in his ears, he makes out that Michael is still speaking:

“That man is subhuman. He doesn’t deserve to call you his son, let alone have the honor of looking at you. Or speaking with you. He doesn’t deserve you. He never has.”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Alex speaks, “That’s...I—nevermind. I told Maria I’m not with Kyle.”

“Good.”

“‘Good?’ Well, if that is all you came to say then: good night.”

“Wait,” he hisses. “Just give me a second to work up the nerve.” Michael takes a deep breath and shakes the snow from his hair. His grip on his hat tightens. He is looking everywhere but Alex’s face. “I am sorry for what I said to you tonight. I was furious and insecure and I took it out on you. Can you forgive me?”

“Yes,” Alex answers honestly. “If you can forgive me for what I said about Nora. I didn’t mean it. I would never—that just isn’t true. It could never be true.”

“Yes, I can. Thank you,” Michael breathes. He grins then, soft and small. He takes a little step towards him, his iron grip on the brim of his hate loosens. “I knew you didn’t mean it. I could see it on your face. Anyway, you would never say something so callous and actually mean it.”

“I—yes, thank you. But, I said it all the same. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Michael repeats. He clenches his eyes shut for a few moments before letting out one long, even breath through his nose. He is certainly looking at Alex this time. “I never look away from you. You transfix me. Despite your psycho dad, despite your behavior and your stubbornness. You need to use the cane more. And I really think you need to reconsider the fourth earring.”

Alex went from feeling as though someone had sucked all the air from the earth to balking and self-consciously pulling at his right ear.

“I just… I think of you all the time. I come to these joint family shit shows for you. Every year for you. No one else. Just you. You drive me crazy when you are in front of me and when you are away. I thought I was better than everyone before I met you. After Ma died I never wanted a family until you tried to kiss me. You gave me hope. You give me hope.”

“I made you hope?”

“Yes,” Michael hisses decisively. “Of course you do. You know, your combination of neurotic self-efficiency and complete, total self-hatred makes you very difficult to deal with.”

Alex laughs in disbelief. His father who owes him an apology says he never wants to see him, even in death. And now, the most pessimistic man he has ever met is telling him that he gives him hope and insulting him at the same time.

“Then why would you so carelessly take it away from someone else?”

Michael blinks, a confused look spreading over his face. “What?”

“Hope. Hope for Rosa,” Alex shouts. “What you have tried to do to her is unforgivable to me, no matter what you say.”

Flustered and sputtering, Michael seethes, “There is a lot you don’t understand.”

“Your favorite phrase of late.”

“It is not my story to tell, Alex.”

“What about when I was in the hospital? When my father came to see you? I know something happened. Did he tell you I didn’t love you?” Michael shakes his head. “What then? Did he threaten you? Walt? You refuse to tell me anything, but you 'like' me?”

Michael scoffs at that.

“You like me in spite of my fucked up family, and my mental illness, and my general overall life philosophy? All that, and you won’t share anything with me. Yeah, you’re sure sweet on me."

“I share everything with you that I can!” Michael shouts before taking a moment to settle down. “Yes, I ‘like’ you, very, very much. And if you could let go of whatever it is you believe you owe to the world, maybe we could work this out?”

“How can we work anything out when you won't tell me what's going on? What kind of relationship is that? And I have obligations to—”

“To what? To who? Even when you ran away, Jesse still had a hold on you. On us. And now, it’s Rosa?”

“He didn’t have a hold on me. Not for a long time. You are the one who cut things off. ‘What happens in the twin bed stays in the twin bed.’ And do not ever compare Rosa—”

“Comparing ain’t equating you know that better than anyone. Fuck, Alex. I’m baring my soul here.”

“Maybe. But, you’re also being mean.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“All these years, you don’t want me, and now? What’s changed?”

“ _I_ don't want _you_? Who—who told you that?”

“You did. I was eighteen and terrified and you told me to fuck off. Just like my father said you would. I didn’t believe him at first because I was so sure you loved me. But, then you changed. You changed so quickly. Every time I tried to understand what I have done to hurt you—to make you so angry—you’ve been so cruel to me. At every turn, Michael.”

“I have. Some of that was just my, apparently, terrible way of flirting.”

He finds himself flush with Michael’s chest, a simple movement forward and their lips would brush. Alex seethes, part fury, part fluster. He bits back the rotten words begging to leap off his tongue. Michael has never been burdened with such issues.

Alex is sucking in air like a drowning man. Michael pants, taking him by the waist and pulling him forward. Alex stumbles back.

“Can we just stop talking about it?” Alex pleads, his knuckles white where he’s grabbing at the breast of his jacket. “It’s cruel of you, to come here and say these things when you don’t—” He trails off before he exposes himself. He begins rebalancing his weight self-consciously. Michael steadies him.

“When I don’t what?”

“When you don’t love me,” Alex says. He keeps his voice even and is looking Michael straight in the eye.

“You think I don’t love you,” Michael repeats, his tone flat. “That’s what you got from this conversation?"

“Well, of course you don’t, I understand why. We both get a bit carried away around this time of year. I would never take spending Christmas with Liz and Arturo away from you. You don’t need to appease me now. It does more harm to me than good at this point.”

Alex sucks in a shaky breath after that. Michael’s grip on his elbow eases only slightly as he pushes Alex back to look at him properly. Michael’s work-rough hands, gently placing Alex where he wants him. An addictive circumstance. Resting his forehead against Alex’s own, Michael closes his eyes.

“If you love me then why can't you tell me, Michael. Tell me so I can fix it. If I can’t be fixed then let’s stop with this game. Please. I’m begging you.”

The snow has stopped falling, but the wind is picking up. Partially shielded by the Crashdown, the wind whips against Alex’s left side. Michael moves so their temples are touching, his teeth chatter in Alex’s ear. On instinct, he rucks the man’s jacket up a spell, shoving his hands in the space in between that and his thick thermal sweater. He roughly rubs his hands against Michael’s back. They both sigh.

“It was always the best night of my year,” Michael says softly into the shell of Alex’s ear. “My life, really. Playing video games with you and the girls. Laying you down on that shit twin bed. Making you all warm. You know, coming home? I wanna tell you, but I can't right now. I'm not ready.”

If he were a different sort, if life has laid itself out in front of Alex in even a slightly different way, he would melt into Michael's arms like he so desperately wants to. Michael smells of the sea and peppermint tonight. Alex wants burrow under the blankets with him, so that it imprints on his senses.

But, he can't.

“If you feel this way, you will make things right with Rosa,” Alex responds, just as quietly.

Michael doesn’t even think about it for a moment before he answers. He kisses Alex’s cheek before he pulls away and says: “No. It’s out of my hands now.”

Moments pass by as Alex’s counts every snowflake that falls upon Michael’s eyelashes. He juts his chin and chest out, a performance of synthetic pride.

Alex’s frustration boils his belly until it reaches the surfaces of skin, where he blushes an unattractive, blistering red.

“Make it right with Rosa, Michael. Why won’t you just make it right?”

He goes to use him Michael's chest as purchase to push himself away. Michael grabs his hand, stopping him. Alex grimaces, grinding his teeth, his heart fluttering, again, at how wonderfully warm Michael’s hands were despite the snow. He snatches at the hand that is holding his, losing his footing and causing him to hold their clasped hands against his heart.

“Angel,” he sighs. “Why must you make it so difficult to love you?” Michael murmurs. He slowly takes his hand back. He brushes Alex’s bangs off his forward.

His words rocked Alex’s very foundation.

It was, after all, his deepest fear. He felt far too close to Michael now. He loathes him at this moment. He need to press closer.

He wants to be brave. To choose honesty and say to the man in front of him: _I don’t know why. It has always been very easy to love you though you seem to do everything you can to make me not._

He just moves away and pulls his jacket tighter across his body. He cannot bear to look at Michael, but he can hear the shock in his voice.

“I—I didn’t—”

“It’s fine. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, alright?"

He turns away, never looking back. Stomping up the stairs as quickly as his sore legs could manage. When he got to the house door, he finally allowed himself to look back and saw that Michael was gone.

Alex had been so caught up in the moment, he forgot to ask Michael about his hand.

He had found out today in a multitude of ways how wrong he had been, about nearly everything. This one cuts the deepest. He didn’t know his heart could sink any lower. The finality of it should be a boon to him. It was part of the reason he came here, to clear the air so that the families needn’t feel so awkward. He had defended Rosa. He didn’t give into Michael’s pretty words again, nor his lovely mouth. How handsome he had looked in snow, in the moonlight, the bustle of life sounding through the town.

He checks his watch and finds that it was officially Christmas Eve. He had done his job.

And yet, all he wanted to do was cry.

He stays immobilized in the short hall, trying desperately to collect himself. He knows only Arturo is home, but he dare not wake him. The man has just a long, hard day ahead of him tomorrow. Alex always begged to be left alone, since he was small. And for the most part, he got his wish.

His teenage bedroom is barren, just a bed and a lamp. His leg is screaming at him to take a bath before he crawls into bed, but he doesn't see how he can manage it.

On the floor, is his collection of potted roses. He still has the cup Michael gave them to him in. ‘For my friend Alex’ written across the lip in a childish scrawl. He had taken them everywhere with him. He had killed them so many times, but he finally has gotten them to fully bloom. Nora's signature blue at the center. He rolls over, as to not look at them anymore.

He doesn't think he will ever really know love at all.


	6. Chapter 6

The Christmas Eve morning at the Crashdown is usually the most stressful part of the holiday for the family. It thankfully goes off without a hitch. Arturo is downstairs heaping praise on his servers and jamming out at the Christmas party. 

Upstairs in the apartment, Alex has been hyper-cleaning ever since he woke up at 5am. 

The apartment has been much more chaotic than the Christmas Eve breakfast rush. He folds the clothes as carefully as he can into the laundry basket. He cannot help but glancing at Rosa and Isobel every few seconds as they shout across the hall at each other. He has only been able to make out pieces.

Someone slams Rosa's bedroom door closed with a 'bang.' The walls of Alex’s room rattle in its wake. 

Stamping down the hall, Rosa screams, “You have horrible timing. How could you keep something like that from me, Isobel, and ever expect me to trust you?”

“I am telling you now, aren’t I?” Alex hears Isobel say calmly, albeit muffled by his mostly closed door. 

"Are you gonna handle it?"

"Yes, I swear to you." 

Rosa swings the front door open and tells her to get out and not come back until it's done. After a few seconds, Alex hears the tell-tale tap of her heels on the carpet and the front door closing softly. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asks when she slams the bedroom door behind her and throws herself on his bed. She starfishes out, nearly knocking his neatly sacked piles onto the floor. She picks at the hem of her pajama pants and straightens her sweater across her stomach.

“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s alright, we can just—”

“She’s _married._ She is fucking married.”

It takes Alex a moment to reboot himself with this information. “Isobel is what now?”

Rosa flips over onto her stomach. She lurches forward towards him on her elbows. All the shirts he's folded fall to the ground. 

“Yeah. She got married to some dude named Noah she met when she was studying abroad. A Noah, Alex. She is still legally married to a _Noah_.”

Alex tries to calculate the time frame in his. Isobel must have been 20 or so when this happened. She has been married for twenty years and the Evans family managed to keep a secret all this time. Alex is shallow enough to be impressed by that. 

Since getting sober, Rosa has always been the type to try to laugh her way through a crisis. 

“I thought marriage was a sham?” he tries. 

“It is! But, this is the principal of the thing, Alex. Ugh, she said that Michael kept pressuring her to tell me the truth. Something about lying to the person you love isn’t worth it or some nonsense. He wishes he could be honest with the person he loves, blah blah blah. I honestly preferred when she was lying.”

With his mind on absolute overdrive, Alex reels with every single sentence Rosa utters. So, Michael hadn’t been interfering out of malice or because he thought Rosa was a bad influence. 

“Oh, and her ‘little’ pill problem that she had and didn’t tell me about. I am bleeding out all over about my 'issue,' as her mother likes to call it. Made to feel like she is slumming it with me. Somehow, she forgets to mention that she has the champagne version of the same thing. She says that Michael said that she shouldn’t be with me until she gets actually sober. He’s trying to get her to go AA. They went to a meeting this morning, that’s why she barged in here. Christmas Eve, now is the time to get all honest-y"

Isobel is a kind, confident person, but she has always been a mystery to Alex. He feels awful for her and how out of control she must feel. But, he is grateful to her for loving Rosa so much that she is willing to tell her the truth. 

"Do you want to leave her?" Alex asks gently, leaning back to grab a packet of tissues from his backpack. 

"Of course not. I just hate that she lied to me," Rosa says. Out of nowhere, fat tears roll down her cheeks. "The pill thing only matters to me because she needs help. And I want to be able to help her and I can't help if she doesn't tell me. It’s the other stuff. Like, she’s gonna divorce this guy. They haven’t seen each other in years. Lowkey, he sounds like a real piece of work. But, I feel like she made a fool of me. Max, Ann, the whole extended family knew. Only me and Liz didn't." 

"Oh, someone here is a fool and it isn't you."

Rosa blows her nose loudly. She looks up at him, confused and red-nosed. "Huh?"

Alex leans over picking up the fallen shirts and begins refolding. “Nevermind. I know the meeting Michael goes to is really good. She has him and Max, I am sure. And when you’re done taking the time that you, she will have you. That makes her the luckiest person in the world.” 

Rosa just cried harder. She slams her face into the comforter and screams. Alex looks at the neatly re-folded shirts and tosses them on the floor himself. He shimmies and lays down next to her. The mattress is so small, half of Alex’s body is covering Rosa’s. He rubs her back, singing her favorite The Verve track under his breath. 

If Michael was trying to get Isobel to tell the truth, that means he was trying to protect both of them. It had nothing to do with Rosa not being good for Isobel. He couldn't tell Alex because then he would be betraying his sister. He was willing to cause a rift between the two of them to help Rosa. Alex knows now as sure as he knows anything, that his father said something to Michael to make him turn from him. Because Michael Guerin has to be the most wonderful, caring person alive. 

“I’m uncomfortable, I’m getting up,” Rosa croaks. 

They lean against the head of Alex’s bed. He opens his arms and she cuddles into his sides. He spends some time tracing patterns onto her arms with his fingers. 

“Do you wanna make cookies?”

“No.”

“Do you want to take a drive?”

“I want Isobel,” Rosa admits, already sounding a little weepy again. 

“I can go and get her for you.”

Rosa sits up a little straighter, cracking her neck and stretching out her legs. She sucks back snot and rubs at her eyes. “Nope, I have some dignity. I’m gonna let her stew for 24 hours. Maybe 12. Okay, no less than 12.” 

Rosa and Isobel were going to be okay. Alex had been so angry with Michael because he thought the prospect of Isobel leaving Rosa would shatter her and she would have to go back to rehab. 

But, Rosa, who moments ago was weeping in his arms, is already making moves to start tickling him. Michael, by positioning himself as the overbearing bad guy, has given Isobel and Rosa the best chance to succeed, alone or together. 

The whole mess has been a good reminder that Rosa is the strongest of all them. 

He squeezes Rosa closer. “Do you think that Michael was still into me? At the party?”

Rosa snorts, picking at her nail polish. “Are you serious?” 

He thinks for a moment if he really wants to do this. 

Alex nods.

“Oh, brother baby bear. I think he wants to marry you. I think he—”

Alex lets out a single sob before he is able to contain himself. He covers his face, appalled by his outburst. 

“Alex, dude, did he hurt you or something? What did he do? I don't care how much he is helping Isobel. I will end his bitchass. Curly-q lookin’ ass. Stank motherfucker.”

“He said all these _things_ last night and I thought—I thought he was just keeping me on because, you know, we have to see each other a lot.”

“Okay, switch,” Rosa declares. Lifting her head and holding open her arms, Alex tucks his head into the crook of her neck. “You thought he was fucking you out of convenience and to not rock the boat.”

“Yeah, because—how do you know we still do that?”

"In short: you're loud."

Slyly, Alex murmurs, “I do like it when he is a little mean in some areas.”

Rosa stops rocking him entirely and looks him in the eye. “First time I am ever saying this to you, but boy, do I mean it: overshare.”

"I was so angry with him about driving a wedge between you and Isobel, I couldn't see anything else. I’m so stupid.”

“Jesus Christ, Alex. Me and Isobel problems are just that: me and Isobel’s problems. Sacrificing yourself for me when it doesn’t do either of us a bit of good.”

Alex cannot believe how daft he has been. He, who prides himself on discernment. Who values loyalty above all else. He has been so blinded by assumption, by ego. 

“I told him to come here this afternoon, but after the way I behaved I don't think he will. Until this very moment, Rosa. I never knew myself.”

Rosa jumps off the bed and runs into the kitchen. She slides back in seconds later with her purse in hand and pulls out her keys. Dangling them in front of his face, she sing-songs, “Let’s go find him.”

“I don’t know where to even start.”

She looks incredulous. “We got love on our side, dude.”

Alex gets up to change, but Rosa, prone to excitement tells him no. 

“No time. We gotta go now!”

Alex looks down at himself. He is wearing dark sweatpants two sizes too small and a ratty Cobra Starship t-shirt that was two sizes too big. 

“Seriously, not even the Cobra.”

“No, it’s perfect,” Rosa insists, beaming though her eyes are still puffy and red. She dances in place. “Come as you are, baby!” 

Her enthusiasm is infectious. They are pounding down the stairs moments later. Throwing their jackets on they run through the Crashdown dining room.

“Papi, we are going to find Michael so Alex can confess his love,” she shouts.

So much adrenaline is pumping through Alex that he doesn’t even protest. 

“Menos mal! It’s about time!” Arturo exclaims without looking up from sweeping. 

"Seriously? Everyone knew?" Alex mumbles under his breath. 

“Yup," Rosa slaps him on the shoulder in an attempt at a comforting gesture and steers him towards the car. 

* * *

They look everywhere for him.

But, of course, he is right where Alex had just left. 

Their timing is a joke that the best comedian couldn’t write. 

It is on the second round circling the neighborhood that they finally spot him sitting on the steps to their apartment over the diner. 

Rosa slams on the brakes and Alex jumps from the car. She doesn’t follow. 

"Aren't you coming?"

"I think I'm gonna go get Isobel."

"Two hours is without question less than 12."

"I'm awesome like that," Rosa smirks and shrug-shimmies in her seat. 

"You really are."

Rosa blows him a kiss and turns up the radio. She shouts over the music, "Now, go forgive the big guy."

"I just hope he forgives me," he says, slamming the passenger side door shut. 

He hops over the parking lot divider. He tries to collect his thoughts. Just put one foot in front of the other. But, as Alex approaches him, Michael is already stumbling towards him with his hat nearly falling off his head and his arms filled with five boxes of Oreos. He looks sharp in jeans and a brown button down. He's even tucked it in. 

“I’m so sorry. I should have known you had the best intentions. Michael, I—” 

Michael trips over his own bootlaces. Tumbling, the cookies in his arm crash to the floor, as does his hat. Michael doesn’t even look down. “None of that matters. I am begging you to end my agony. I have been a fucking idiot. An absolute dumbass in letting my pride and my fear keep me from what I want the most,” Michael says, tripping over his own feet again and throwing his arms out to balance himself. “And that’s _you,_ angel.”

He plays at anger. He places his hands on his hips and makes his scrunch up in mock indignation. “So, you still like me despite my long-running list of faults?” 

Michael, the stupidly handsome son of a bitch, is smiling. He just smiles all through Alex’s point. 

“No, no, angel. You misunderstood me. I like all of it. I like you—fuck it, I _love_ you. Just the way you are.”

“You once told me that my… beliefs were stupid. Has that changed?”

“No, but I can explain why." Michael’s shoulders droop. He snatches his hat off the ground and runs his fingers through his hair a few times before putting it back on his head. 

And then, he finally tells Alex everything.

They had to be careful after Jesse did what he did to Alex’s leg. That was a punishment for some simple necking. They didn’t want to imagine the consequences for worse. When Alex went away for a few weeks to get better. Michael was glad for him. Excited even. Then Jesse came in for a ‘tune up.’ Stood next to Michael as he worked, breathing down his neck. Saying the most thoughtless, horrid things about Alex and himself. When Michael least expected it, Jesse slammed the hood down on Michael’s hand and pressed down on it with his elbow. He held it there for what seemed like hours as Michael screamed and squirmed. How no one would ever believe a Guerin over a Manes. How his mother and his uncle were trash and that's all he would ever be, too. No matter how hard he tried. When he was through, he told him that if he ever touched Alex again, he would kill Alex and make Michael watch.

"I couldn't have him hurt you again. Do you understand? When I was eighteen, and stupid. I had no self-control. If I was around you, I had to touch you. I have to have you because I am fuckin' animal for you. So, I pushed you away. But, I was so pissed you went so easily. Isn't that terrible? Then you were at the party, and I thought I had lost my chance. I’m trying to balance getting sober myself and now Iz and I just took it out on you. I’m so sorry."

Michael had gotten himself into a terrible cycle of destruction after his mother died. The drinking made things worse, but knows now he was medicating his grief. For his parents, for Alex, for the life he would never get to have. He needed Alex to go, but he hated him for leaving. 

"You never asked me to stay."

"I couldn't. I don't know why. I just couldn't." 

Alex sinks to his knees, melted snow seeping into his sweatpants. He takes Michael's hand in his, he looks at the wrapping and then at Michael. He nods. Sighing in relief, Alex undoes the bandana reverently. The skin is rough, due to his work and the weather. Red and warm, Michael winces when Alex presses his fingertips to the long gash of a scar. Biting back a sob, he kisses along the long healed external injury. Some part of him, the foolish center of him, hoping his lips can cure the hurt on the inside.   
  


“I would have done anything to protect you.”

”I know,” Michael says pointedly. “Can’t you see the only way to keep you safe was to not tell you a thing. If I told you, it was prison or a grave for both of us.” 

Alex weeps then, against his lover's damaged, but perfect skin. He cries for the years of joy and contentment lost. Lost to manipulation and fear. Collapsing against Michael's legs, he is lost in his sea of misery and guilt.

Pulling back, Alex takes a deep breath and tries to stand. He apologizes for making a scene. What an odd picture they must make to anyone who might be looking at them. Alex, on his knees surrounded by packages of sweets, going from near hysterics to blankly apologizing. He tries to stand again, but he can tell his knee will give out. Michael hoists him up by gripping him under the armpits. Tsking and crying himself, he can’t clean Alex’s face fast enough. As soon as one tear is wiped away, another appears. 

“I could not think of a better visual metaphor for our relationship,” Michael sobs out, though he is smiling. He continues to fruitlessly catch Alex’s tears on the pads of his thumbs. 

"I'm so sorry, Michael." 

“This was your father. You are not your father.” 

“I’ve been so mean to—”

“‘Cause _I_ was mean. I needed you away from me, but I’m not scared anymore, Alex.” 

“I really am so sorry. For everything.”

“It wasn’t you, Alex.”

“I should have pushed more. I should have known that you would never—”

“I should have never let that son of a bitch get in my head. We can’t change it now.”

"How can you even stand to look at me?"

Michael's whole face softens. He takes Alex's face in his hands and kisses his nose and cheeks. "How could ever not look at you? I look at you and all I see is the sweet boy who tried to give me a place to stay. The man who takes care of everyone. That's what I see when I look at your face. Nothing and no one else. Just you. Plus," Michael adds, swiping his thumb along the swell of Alex's lower lip. "This mouth. Man, this fuckin' mouth. You are so hot." 

Alex starts to laugh but just ends up moaning and crying again. He takes Michael's hand and again brings it to his mouth. He tries to kiss every inch of it. 

“I didn’t tell you because I knew this would happen."

Alex sniffles and nods jerkily. He swipes under his nose with his sleeve. “I’m sorry for getting so worked up. I know,” Alex lets out a breathy laugh. “I made it about me. I’m sorry. How do you feel?”

Something in the air shifts. Michael scrunches his face up and shakes his head. In the wake of this sudden silence, Alex starts running everything he said over in his head to try and figure out where he went so wrong. 

“I didn’t want to tell you because now you hurt all over. I can see it. I can feel it. I promised myself that day that he would never hurt you again. And here he is, hurting you again. I fuckin’ hate your dad. I hate him. I hate him and I love you. You understand?”

He kisses Michael then, just because he can. 

No matter the pain of loneliness and uncertainty. No matter the time lost that he could have spent making sure Michael was cared for. If to suffer all that was to end with them here with Michael holding him close, basking in their heavenly repose, Alex couldn’t claim dissatisfaction. He kisses Michael until he could no longer keep his hands in tracing his favorite face, forced to shove his icicle hands into his pockets. 

“Can we maybe go inside?” Michael asks. He runs his hands up and down Alex’s sides. He is leering when he suggests, “I can warm you up all proper like, yeah? Take you into that bed and show you I ain’t some wannabe corporate cowboy with a nose as big as his hat.”

Alex groans, burying his face deeper against Michael’s neck. “I didn’t mean it. I love your nose.” He snuggles closer, “Has anyone ever told you smell like the best parts of the ocean?” 

They laugh as they pick the cookies up off of the ground and then they float to his bedroom, Alex is sure of it. He is absolutely floating.

* * *

His bedroom is glowing with light. Twinkle lights hung along with the upper molding. All the clean laundry that he had left scattered on the floor is folded and stacked in the basket. His bed has about three times the amount of pillows it once had. He recognizes the knitted mauve blanket as one of Michael's, a gift from an elderly woman in exchange for oil changes. It smells of pine and cinnamon. 

Alex chuckles and takes the final step between them. He was very happy and very anxious. Every moment spent being in Michael’s line of sight was a wonder and damnation. He was always pleased to be in his presence. Strange, how a man seemingly solely intended on getting a rise out of him could also reassure him in a way no one else could or would. 

Michael comes in from behind, his hands curling around Alex's stomach to pull him back against him. His firebrand hands are finally on him, finally soothing him. 

Michael points to the corner where a used, but very nice keyboard sits on a handmade stand. Alex aches with the love he holds all over his body for Michael. One would think that eventually, Alex would become accustomed to it. He just caresses Michael's forearms, making him hold him tighter. He presses increasingly dirty kisses to Alex's neck and shoulders in response. 

"What's all this?" Alex moans out. 

"Merry Christmas. Arturo let me in an hour or so ago," Michael explains before diving back into ravishing his neck. 

"Wait," Alex gasps as Michael moves his hands lower. "I have something to give you, too."

Michael chuckles, low and dirty, "Me too. I have a lot of real good memories involving this very t-shirt"

"No, Michael. Give me a minute."

Untangling himself from his octopus of man, he stumbles over to the closet and takes out the roses. He turns around, flowers in hand, to find Michael sitting on the end of his, pouting and whinging, but still managing to undress himself. He stops unbuttoning his shirt mid-way when he sees what is in Alex's hands. 

Alex sits down next to him. Michael takes the pot gently out of his hands, supporting the bottom and mindful of the petals. Just like his Ma taught him. 

"Remember that flower you gave me in elementary school?"

Michael nods distractedly, touching the off pink petals and bringing the slightly blue pistil up to his nose. He lets Michael commune with it, his mother’s prized rose. He tells him all about the collection of the ripe seeds from the flower head. The task of placing them on waxed paper, the process of letting the seeds dry. He always had some form of Nora's prize-winning flower with him wherever he went. He has killed more than two dozen but he always tried again. He thinks he really nailed it this time. 

“I mean, fuck, it probably has mutated, what? Five times? So, anyway, it’s not perfect, but it’s here. I really tried. Does it look right to you?”

Always one to surprise him, Michael speaks immediately. 

“You wanna marry me, or what?”

Furrowing his brows, Alex laughs a little. 

“I’m deadly serious. I already got Arturo's permission.”

"How regency era of you,” Alex teases, pulling his knees to his chest. “Will you get a cow with me?"

“In the Regency era, it would have just been a straight monetary exchange.”

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Historian.” 

Michael shoves his shoulder playfully. "No, I just wanted him to be sure that I had my head on straight now. I'm sober, I'm in therapy. I know all our problems won't be solved magically, but I feel like we lost so much time that rushing a bit isn't a crime. I told him I wanted to make you happy, I want to take care of you. I’ve always wanted to marry you. Even when we were kids. I would watch you playing the piano and imagine you playing at our wedding. Is that cheesy?" 

And Alex had to reward that pretty speech with a kiss. Tender and lazy, mindful of the flowers in his lap. 

That lasts all of a few seconds before Michael is breaking free to put the pot down on the floor and diving back in. He cups Alex’s neck, deepening the kiss. Brushing his thumbs over Alex's cheekbones and into his hair. 

“Say it, please,” Michael pleads, a begging rasp against his mouth. “Please, please.” 

"I wanna call my brothers."

Shaking his head like a wet dog, Michael frowns, "That, uh, isn't what I was expecting you to say."

"I want to call my brothers and tell them we are getting married. Is that okay? I would want my brothers there."

Michael smiles so widely Alex fears his face may very well split in half. 

Alex is only on the phone for a few minutes. All three were staying at Clay's place, and said that they would be there whenever the ceremony happened with bells on. He hangs up when they start fighting over best man rites. He doesn't have the heart to tell them it will likely be Rosa. He throws his phone on the nightstand and makes his way over to where Michael is once again communing with the roses. 

"So," he says, curling his arms around Michael's shoulders. "You really wanna marry me, huh?" 

Michael answers, holding Alex close, “It would be my greatest pleasure.”

"How about you give me my greatest pleasure?" 

Michael groans happily, purring between kisses. Gripping Alex by the meat of his neck, he gazes into his eyes. Then, gentle and firm, he pushes him down on the bed. "Oh, as you wish."

* * *

An hour or so later, they emerge from Alex's room. Alex is in new pants and favoring his cane. His hair is matted to the left side of his head. Michael has one of Alex's old t-shirts on backward. He hums pulling Alex before they enter the kitchen to kiss him a few more times. 

“I love you, Michael.”

“God, do I love you.”

Alex does think he could stop smiling if he tried. 

Still holding hands, Alex leads Michael into the kitchen. Arturo sits at the table with his chef's jacket still on. 

"Good evening, mijos. Did you have a nice afternoon?" 

The stars are out already. The Christmas tree is lit, but the house is quiet. Alex sits gingerly at the table with Arturo, he wonders aloud where Rosa and Liz. Michael fetches a glass and some water. He places it in front of him and leaves a long, lingering kiss on the crown of his head. 

“They should be here soon,” Arturo says, 

As soon as Michael settles in the chair next to him, Alex tells him: “We’re gonna get married. Very soon." 

Arturo is hiding a grin behind his magazine. “I wouldn't have guessed. Before your brother, eh?” Arturo directs to Michael conspiratorially and with a devilish grin. 

"Oh, I got an offer from UNM and I am taking it. So, you’re going to be seeing more of me,” he says happily, but then hastily adds: “If that’s alright."

Michael kisses him square on the mouth for that. Arturo cheers and goes to fetch the good tequila. 

"Arturo, we don't drink anymore." 

"Oh, I know. This is just for me," Arturo downs the shot and lets out a satisfied 'ah.' "This is me celebrating my boy." 

Alex looks at Arturo, really looks at him for the first time in a long time. He has more wrinkles around his eyes, but he is still steady on his feet like an ox. He sways a bit to the music on the radio. He seems so desperately happy where he is. His daughters coming over for Christmas and two men he has known since they were boys taking up seats at his table. He seems overjoyed. 

He smacks his lips after taking his second and last shot. “To Alex, to Michael, to all my children on Christmas.” 

He makes the sign of the cross over his body, kisses his hand and holds it skyward. 

Alex breaks his prayer by saying something he has always yearned to, but never felt that the moment was right. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for choosing to be my dad when you didn’t have to. I know it wasn’t easy with another mouth to feed.”

Arturo is looking at him as if he had grown a second head, “A father does need or ask for thank yous.”

“Me too,” Michael adds. “You took me in for every damn holiday after Ma died. When I would get the fits of the Evans, I always knew I could come here and you wouldn’t turn me away. Thank you for that.”

He walks over to them in quick, but short strides. Holding both their faces in his hands, he whispers, “You took care of my girls. You’re my boys, and that’s all I know. My hands were tied with your father, Alex. With what he has done. I promised your mother, Michael. Me and Walt, we promised her. So, there was no choice for me, you understand? Tell me you understand.” They nod. He pats their faces twice. Standing up, he clears his throat and wipes at his eyes. "I'm going to go clean myself up. Get changed, take a nap, yes? Will you two start the buñuelos so they are ready when your sisters get here?" 

* * *

The buñuelos are half mixed in the bowl when the others arrive. Otherwise occupied, Michael and Alex miss the car pulling into the lot under the kitchen window. Isobel and Max loudly argue all the way up the staircase. The slam of Liz’s suitcase on each stair. 

By the time they realize their family is upon them, Isobel has already kicked open the door. 

“We’re here, bitches. Kyle and Maria are coming later and I am going to murder you all at Smash Bros,” Rosa shouts from her place perched on Isobel’s back. 

The four of them stare at the scene before them. Alex hoisted up on the counter with his legs around Michael's waist. His cane and Michael's shirt have been harshly abandoned on the floor. 

Michael and Alex freeze in place. 

They all tilt their heads, taking it in. Then, as fast as they paused, they are back to where they started. 

Liz dumps her armful of wrapped gifts on the table. "One of you unclench and help me bring the rest of these in, will you?"

“Well, God bless us, everyone,” Max says, shaking his head at Michael and wheeling the suitcase into the living room. 

Arturo emerges from his bedroom and soon everyone is bustling around them. Liz and Rosa snipe over who is going to play Toad. Max burns the plantains. Alex’s phone rings every twenty minutes with one of his brothers complaining about the other’s choice of holiday movie. Isobel is hanging even more decorations into the hallway and insists on blasting KISS FM. Maria and Kyle show up and throw an absolute spanner into the works with their request to play Mortal Kombat and their terrible taste in seltzer water. 

After an hour or two of constant talking, movement, and laughter, Michael pulls him into a relatively quiet corner. 

He hugs him tightly. They sway back and forth in a movement resembling a slow dance. 

Michael asks Alex if he will sing him to sleep later that night. 

Looking at the family fighting over video game controllers while Michael snuggles into and the spot where his shoulder and neck meet, Alex wonders how he will ever learn to be content with being so much happier than he could ever deserve. 

**fin.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i neglected to cross post the art. my bad!

rebloggable and all that jazz on [tumblr](https://usbournejez.tumblr.com/post/637250236870541313/follies-and-nonsense-whims-and-inconsistencies-a)

**Author's Note:**

> Find out more about The American Indian Library Association here: https://ailanet.org/about/about-aila/


End file.
